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Meetup #31: VR & Empathy with Justin Beaver

Thu, Mar 6, 2025,
16:00 - 17:30 CET
For our March Meetup, we’re delighted to be joined by Alexandra Sierra Rativa, lecturer at the Hogeschool Rotterdam as well as the cofounder of the XR Academia conference, to explore how empathy can be fostered through Virtual Reality experiences.
In her talk, Alexandra will focus on a VR project called Justin Beaver, developed as part of her PhD research in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University (2015-2022). This research aims to create educational tools with an empathetic, social, and educational impact, utilising advanced technologies for immersive education on climate change and sustainability.
The results have been published in a doctoral book as well as two academic articles, and have been presented at over 50 international and national events and conferences. From this research (2022-2024), a game has been developed in three languages and this has been showcased in exhibitions in France, Japan, Belgium, Colombia, and the Netherlands. This video of the VR experience gives a sense of Alexandra’s work!

Looking forward to seeing you on the day and, as ever, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

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About the Meetups

XR ERA organizes regular meetups to share knowledge, ideas, and experiences on various XR-related topics. Got an insight, experience, or project to share, or would you like to start a discussion? You’re welcome to present your work, questions, and challenges during a meetup. The XR ERA team organizes the meetups. Reach us at xrcommunity@llinc.leidenuniv.nl with your topic suggestion.

Past Meetups

360° Videos in Healthcare Education | Recap Meetup #35

360° Videos in Healthcare Education | Recap Meetup #35

On October 30th, we were delighted to welcome Nynke de Jong, who presented Maastricht University's extensive implementation of 360° videos in their healthcare education. This implementation started in 2016, after students in the Care in Context module experienced a...

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VR’s Impact on Youth Mental Health | Recap Meetup #33

VR’s Impact on Youth Mental Health | Recap Meetup #33

On July 1st, we were joined by Nina Krupljanin, a PhD candidate at Leiden University's Institute of Education and Child Studies who has been researching the use of Virtual Reality as a means of conducting trauma therapy for children. In her presentation, she guided us...

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Flanders’ XR Action Plan | Recap Meetup #32

Flanders’ XR Action Plan | Recap Meetup #32

For our 32nd Meetup, we were thrilled to be joined by Louise Paepe from RTC Antwerp to share with us the process and successes of the Flemish XR Action Plan. Working with several hundred Flemish educational institutions allowed those involved in the large-scale plan...

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International Virtual Exchanges & XR | Recap Meetup #27

International Virtual Exchanges & XR | Recap Meetup #27

On September 26th, we were delighted to welcome Dario Fazzi to share with us his successfully-implemented Virtual Exchange (VE) programme at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Following a call from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science to...

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StereoKit | Recap Meetup #23

StereoKit | Recap Meetup #23

On the 13th of March, the XR ERA community gathered for an interactive workshop on StereoKit - an “easy-to-use open-source mixed reality library for building HoloLens and VR applications with C# and OpenXR”.   Throughout the hour and a half spent together, we had the...

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